Luigi12901 Blog

Hey, thanks for dropping by! This is Luigi12901, with the first edition of Retro Review. This time, I'll be reviewing Fire Emblem, a strategy RPG for the Game Boy Advance. Released in Japan on April 25th, 2003 and November 3rd in North America, this was the 7th installment in the series and the first to be released outside Japan. It was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It garnered an 88.3 rating on Game Rankings, making it the highest-scoring Fire Emblem game in the series overall.

(Fun Fact- Fire Emblem is actually mentioned briefly in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the GameCube. Talk to the little boy in 'Petalburg' during the first chapter, and he'll mention that he's been playing a lot of GBA games lately, but one of his favorites is Fire Emblem. He later mentions the original Paper Mario on the N64)

In the game, you control Lyn, Eliwood, Hector, and their comrades in their quests to prevent the continent of Elibe from breaking out into another war. There has been peace in the land for nearly a thousand years, but signs of conflict are beginning to show and the peace is starting to unsettle. Your army will be put through thirty-plus chapters and intense turn-based fighting. Often your party will be outnumbered three to one, so good strategy is the key to victory. You must take advantage of every trick you're given in order to succeed. The weapons triangle (swords best axes, axes best spears, and spears best swords) is one such trick. (There is a similar triangle with magic spells) But what really separates Fire Emblem from the rest of the pack is the fact that if you lose a character in battle, they're gone forever, and will not come back. There are plenty of characters to recruit along the way, and you'll definitely become attached to them as they grow stronger and more powerful.

The game has a fairly high difficulty (especially compared to Shadow Dragon from the DS). The first ten levels are mainly tutorial in nature, and help you get used to the finer points of gameplay. Over the next twenty levels (plus a handful of optional side quests), the difficulty increases until the endgame, which is very challenging, even if your party is high-level. Keeping all your characters alive through the end is extremely rewarding, and provides an excellent challenge. Upon defeating the game in normal mode, you can unlock a harder mode of the game, which makes you take less characters into each battle, gives you less gold to buy weapons, and throws 'fog of war' at you, which diminishes how much of the battle field you can see at once. The visuals in the game are very crisp and clean, and they still look great today. The music and sounds of the game, while nothing extraordinary, are appropriate throughout and never get annoying.

(Scores)

· Gameplay- 10/10

· Replayability- 9/10

· Graphics/Audio- 9/10

· Overall- 9.5/10 (Incredible)

(Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions for future editions, let me know!)

Hey all, once again thanks for reading. Starting in a few days I'm going to be working on a series I call 'Retro Review'. Let me know if that title's already used or anything, I don't want to get sued for copyright infringement when this gets famous. :P Anyway, I'll be reviewing games that fit into the Legacy Games section of Gamespot's forums, mainly GBA, GCN, and PS2 games. This isn't so much as a 'How was this game back when it released?' so much as a 'How does it hold up today?' review. First up for review is Fire Emblem, a strategy RPG for the Game Boy Advance. Expect my review within a few days.

(Edit) Turns out that name's used for a website, so I'm open to any suggestions now. 8)

(Update) I'm on the last level of the game on normal mode, so I'm planning on putting the review out either tomorrow or Friday. My school ends on Friday, and it's graduation for me.

Hey, thanks for reading! I recently picked up a Game Boy Micro, so I could get a chance to play through some of the old GBA games I missed. Right now, here's the games on my wish list (in no particular order) :

Final Fantasy VI Advance

Golden Sun

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Sword of Mana

Tales of Phantasia

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Final Fantasy V Advance

Zelda: Minish Cap

Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Shining Force

Metal Slug Advance

Breath of Fire 2

Advance Wars

Metroid: Fusion

Now, here's where I'd love some help. Give me the names of a couple of your favorites that aren't on this list. Please don't include any of the other Super Mario Advance games, I've played them all previously. And if you've played a few of the games on my list and really hated them, let me know so I can avoid them.For now, the only game I still have for it is Mario Kart: Super Circuit, but I'll have some money this weekend, so I'm looking for any other suggestions.

Thanks!

(Update) I've played through a considerable portion of Fire Emblem now, one of the best GBA games I've played to date. Bought SMB3, ALTTP, and Breath of Fire as well, haven't worked too much on those yet. Added Metroid Fusion to the list, upon recommendation (thanks!).

I've officially decided that nobody cares about these, but to maintain my decreasing sanity, I'm writing them anyway. So if you do by chance happen to read this, please leave some sort of comment to soothe my frayed nerves. XD

ANYWAY...I'm currently in the second mako reactor, trying to decide whether or not I actually set whatever device I was supposed to set. But that's not really why I'm writing this. I went into Gamestop yesterday looking for nothing in particular, and I found a used copy of Advent Children in the UMD movies. Only 6.99, so I picked it up to watch after I finish VII. *is excited*

Well, as of yesterday I've officially beaten Final Fantasy VII. NOT. Late April Fools. I've been so busy so I've really only gotten as far as Avalanche's 'hideout'. Enjoying it so far, although the graphics are a little jarring coming off Crisis Core and even Final Fantasy VIII. Other than that, I've got nothing to complain about.

I finally got around to finishing Crisis Core a few days ago, and I have to say it was a great game story-wise! Gameplay was a little lacking as it got somewhat redundant, but I wouldn't say that it was boring by any means. Today I'm starting the original, FFVII. I already know bits and pieces of the story, but I can't wait to actually get into the game and see what the whole deal's about.

Well then, wish me luck as I embark on the grand journey through FFVII! I shall make an attempt to keep whoever actually reads this updated. It's been quite a while since my last blog, and that's because I'm ultra-busy with school stuff and getting ready to move. Until next time!

Welcome to my information center for the upcoming game 'Final Fantasy Agito XIII'. I will be updating this with whatever information I can find about the game. As of right now, we don't have much more than a trailer and a handful of screenshots, but I'll post anything new I find up here. Please enjoy! Also, feel free to suggest content to add to this. Thanks!

Greetings, and thank you for reading my currently playing blog! This month, I'm making several updates to the previous versions. First of all, I'm changing the titles ofa couple sections (to match Gamespot's collection device more accurately). I will also add a new section at the end of this, for things like thoughts, game facts, games I like/dislike, etc.

Well, that's all for this month. I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday season, and I hope you have a great time with whichever holiday you celebrate. See you all next month with my next update. Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! I'm having a good day, so I figured that it's a good time to update this (even if it's only been 11 days since the last one). Since I have more time today, I'll try to make improvements to this. I'll be bringing back some sections that I couldn't do last time, and maybe add some new things to it. Enjoy! (if that's even possible